👋 hi!

👋 hi, i'm joe.

I'm a software engineer, mountain biker, golfer, snowboarder, photographer, gamer, sports fan, and denizen of the internet (among other things). I live with my wife and goldendoodle in Salt Lake City, Utah. Here's a bit of what I'm up to on the internet and elsewhere.

🐘 Posting

the beta images are available! please wait for my downloads to complete before you all start hogging the bandwidth, thanks. (also: don't follow my example, install them only on test devices) #WWDC24

Jun 10, 2024

i'm flipping back and forth so much during this “AI” segment of the #WWDC24 keynote. some things are great, others are varying levels of cringe/bad/awful.

the result of an SVP saying “all teams need to be building features based on an LLM, non-negotiable”.

some things are great! the team looked at the capabilities and the user needs and thoughtfully implemented something wonderful. other teams just threw something together that’s little more than a tech demo.

Jun 10, 2024

👨‍💻 Writing

Can we talk about the App Store?

There has been a lot of press around changes to the App Store lately.

First there was a US court decision that forced Apple into allowing apps to include an “alternate payment link”, and just yesterday they announced a sweeping set of changes coming to the EU App Store due to the Digital Markets Act (DMA) that is scheduled to come into effect in March.

Both of these legally mandated changes are being implemented in such a way as to do the absolute bare minimum required and make everyone who decides to use the new options pay for it.

January 26, 2024 • Read more

15" MacBook Air

I side-graded my 2021 16" MacBook Pro to the 15" MacBook Air. I’ve been doing a bit more travel lately, and I’m getting tired of lugging the bigger 16" beast around with me. The smaller machine is a tradeoff in a few areas compared to the Pro, but it shaves 1.4lbs (0.59kg) of weight off, is significantly thinner, and slightly smaller.

I haven’t had the opportunity to take a trip with it yet, but in some trial runs throwing it in my backpack, the difference is already feeling nice.

January 10, 2024 • Read more